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Topic: Tommie Hoban (Read 1638 times)

Was supposed to have shoulder surgery a fortnight ago but was allowed to postpone it until his heavily pregnant partner had the baby which she did last Thursday. Hadn't had the op as of yesterday but having it "this week" and will be staying down south to be monitored by Watford during his recovery.

The injury occurred after he scored against Hibs. I'm presuming this means in the after goal celebrations when the goalscorer gets swarmed/jumped on by the other players.....I don't think tapping home from a yard out would damage anyones shoulder. I'm surprised managers allow this to go on tbh.....only surprised more injuries don't occur during goal celebrations. It's a needless risk.

Definitely a player in there and loved his attitude, but can we really afford to take a chance on a player who has now done both knees. Shame really, but guess if he stayed fit he'd have been nowhere near us in the first place.

Definitely a player in there and loved his attitude, but can we really afford to take a chance on a player who has now done both knees. Shame really, but guess if he stayed fit he'd have been nowhere near us in the first place.

Aren't these the risks we have to take in our position in the world of fitba? It's no different to taking a punt on an unknown from the English leagues for me. Ultimately, we've had more use out of Hoban than we have from Gleeson, Forrester and Wilson combined despite neither of those having injury issues. In other words, you can take a punt on a guy that you know to be a good fitba'r that could miss games through injury or you could take a punt on a guy that you think might be a better player than those you've got but should remain injury free. Hoban would be an improvement on what we've got (at right centre half) in my opinion so we could

I quite like it if I'm honest, it makes things a bit more interesting. It would be shite if all our signings were ace. Part of what makes fitba exciting is that opportunity to make mistakes. We're probably one or two signings in budget ahead of Hibs and Hearts at the moment so to have that pressure on yer recruitment is the way fitba should be.

I'd hope that's what we give all our players to be honest. To me there's little difference between an injured player and a charlatan like Nicky Maynard who spends his entire time on a bench.

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he has an horrendous injury records, whether thats bad luck or something physical/bio mechanical who knows.

Yep, it could just be bad luck or injuries that are unrelated. We'd have regretted not getting Anderson back despite his previous injuries for example. Sometimes a player just goes through a spell of incidents. We could get a couple of years out of him injury free if there's no underlying issue. Similarly, we could sign someone without injury problems who tears a cruciate the next week. Basically, if the medical staff thinks there's no reason to be concerned then get him on board.

With both his knees having had cruciate repairs I cant envisage there will be a queue of clubs lining up to sign him once he is considered fit to play again ( with his contract at Watford being up in summer, I'd hope they continue to allow him to use their training/rehab facilities beyond this and not just cast him adrift). Of course there is a fair chance that he might never be considered fit to play football again, or certainly to a professional level.

However assuming he does.....in the few games he played for us he looked a better option in central defence than Devlin. And Devlin was probably our best (certainly most consistent) player up till he got injured away with Scotland. Obviously we couldn't get anywhere near matching what he earns at Watford but his options are likely to be limited given his injury history. If he were happy to accept a (very) low basic wage but with (very good) bonus payments on a pay-as-you-play basis then I'd be happy to take a punt on him for a year, with an extension clause for a further year or 2 that triggers if he plays more than 30 games in the season.

However if he wanted a minimum 2 year deal on wages that we pay our highest earners.....well I'd consider that too much of a risk.

The guy looks a class act when fit, bit of a gamble admittedly given his injury record. For what its worth , i think he is worth the gamble. If there is any chance getting the likes of Hoban or Lowe on a permanent deal , we have to take it i.m.o. As someone else says, if a pay per play deal was possible that would surely be ideal.

There will surely be a shutdown of football after this weekend. Gives him a chance to reach "peak" fitness by the time it resumes which I presume will be early April at the earliest.

However there aren't many players around who have snapped both cruciates never mind tried to return from them. A deal till the end of the season is sensible for both parties. He'll need a few reserve games on the resumption of football to both test his knee(s) out in a less pressured environment and also to build up his match fitness. I doubt under normal circumstances that we would be intending to play him much, if at all in the remaining league games, we would likely be into the split by the time he's achieved match fitness and unless another central defender cops an injury in the interim, he will likely only be on the bench at best.....certainly until European qualification is settled. If we can get that done reasonably quickly then it would be good to see him at least one start before the season ends to let him see if he can stand up to the rigours of first team football.

Longer term.....as has been said, his wife is due to drop their second sprog fairly imminently. I'm not convinced after what has happened that his first choice would be to relocate his family 600 miles north. With him being at Watford, although he certainly wouldn't have been in their top earners on £50k+ per week, I'd imagine the kind of wages that we pay even our very top earners is likely to be a bit of a drop as to what he was getting down there. And with his injury history, I'm not certain the club should/would be offering terms that put him amongst our top earners anyway. I do have a feeling that Devlin might be looking to engineer a move out the club in summer given that he's now firmly established as 4th choice centre back. If he were allowed to go, I'd probably say that Hoban would be worth signing for a couple of years on the same money that Devlin was getting. But at that level, he could certainly have that at least matched by pretty much every EFL1 club and a good few EFL2 clubs as well. He might find that he could pick up a club at that level where he doesn't have to move house at all (Leyton Orient supposedly interested and a non-league club Barnet???).

Whatever happens down the line, with the loon nothing but the best. He was absolutely strolling it up here prior to the injury and hopefully he can get himself back playing to the same level with no further traumas. He deserves a bit of luck after what he's been through